CAMP RUSSELL, TARIN KOWT
‘Yankee Alpha! Yankee Alpha!’ he heard her scream.
Skiing off piste, Matt Rix miscalculated a sharp turn and smashed into a tree.
‘Yankee Alpha!’ she screamed again.
Why is she using my call sign? he wondered. As the commander of Yankee Platoon from the 2nd Commando Regiment, Matt was referred to as Yankee Alpha – but not by her; it was as confusing as hell.
The soft cold snow, her sweet British voice filled with terror, the violent impact of his high-speed crash: it was all repeated over and over. Then he felt her soft hands on him, shaking him gently as she yelled.
‘Yankee Alpha!’ Her voice grew deeper, harsher; her hands became strong and hard and the shaking became violent.
‘Yankee Alpha! Boss! For fuck’s sake – Matt!’
Matt opened his eyes in bewilderment to meet the steely gaze of his platoon sergeant, Yankee Bravo, otherwise known as Jack Jones, or JJ. A giant of a man and an accomplished martial artist, JJ was a no-nonsense straight-talking commando sergeant, just what a platoon commander needed in Afghanistan.
With his eyes open now, Matt surveyed the small room. It was flooded with red light and through a gaping hole in the ceiling he could see the clear night sky above Camp Russell. The bright stars seemed to be flickering in time to the bursts of machine-gun fire on the perimeter. In the background, various alarm bells were ringing and people were yelling out fire control orders, panic in their voices.
‘Gun Group, fifty metres, at the base of the tree, five enemy lying in the creek bed, rapid FIRE!’ A section from the infantry company next door had their area of responsibility well under control. The section commander’s voice boomed out over the camp.
Matt looked at his feet; the skis were gone, and his heart sank with the realisation that Rachel, too, was gone.
An explosion reverberated through the camp and then another impact blew out the hallway wall, causing Matt to lift from the bed.
He looked at the sergeant. ‘Shit! What the hell was that?’
‘Christ, boss – c’mon, wake up!’
Boom! Boom! Boom! Matt recognised the sound of mortars in the adjoining camp firing an illumination mission, trying to bring clarity to the confusion. A couple of seconds later the night above him became an eerie yellow day.
‘MATT! The men fucking need you – right now!’ JJ screamed as Matt became fully conscious to the events unfolding around him. They were under direct attack!
JJ grabbed the brown t-shirt and combat pants from the chair next to Matt’s bed and pushed them into his chest.
‘Hurry! Put these on.’
‘What the hell’s going on? What time is it?’ asked Matt, almost stumbling in his haste as he pulled on his pants.
‘It’s three thirty in the morning and it’s a fucking mess out there, boss! What the hell do you think is going on? Listen!’
‘Right, right – got it.’ Matt grabbed his body armour and threw it over his head, doing the Velcro up with one hand while snatching his M4 rifle off the wall rack with the other. Two huge explosions interrupted the distinctive sound of AK-47 fire.
Handing Matt his helmet, JJ bundled him out the room and into the hallway.
‘Suicide bombers, boss – I think there are about fifty or more Taliban out there and they seem well organised.’
The two of them ran out of the smouldering building and into a night thick with the smell of cordite and burning paint.
‘They’re inside the wire. The platoon is moving to their defensive position now. The HQ building is locked down and the enemy is being held back in the vehicle yard.’
Machine-gun fire was followed by what sounded like grenades.
‘Where are the SAS guys?’ Matt demanded.
‘They’re still an hour away, out on some time-sensitive targeting mission in the mountains up above the Chora Valley.’
Another rocket-propelled grenade whistled overhead, exploding harmlessly past the dining facility. Matt calculated that it had come from the open-sided shed being used as a vehicle yard located on the outer perimeter. While the yard didn’t guarantee the Taliban immediate access to the inner perimeter, and therefore free run of the base, it was only a matter of time and Matt knew it. He looked around as they passed the last accommodation block. He could see that most of the damage was contained to the accommodation blocks themselves.
‘How come these pricks always have so much ammunition?’ JJ yelled.
They were running past Yankee Platoon’s vehicles now. The soldiers had been packing the Bushmasters earlier that afternoon, and the protected mobility vehicles lined the road in front of the accommodation.
‘I don’t know, mate, but it’s lucky all the gun cars are still sitting here on the ring road and not where they should be in the vehicle yard.’
Matt and JJ arrived at the forward area of the internal perimeter. Beyond this was the vehicle yard. It had thirty-foot Hesco walls, a type of rapidly deployable defensive structure filled with dirt. At either end of the yard was an access gate. The Taliban had passed the external guard tower with its big steel gates and, instead of heading straight into the main camp, they had turned right and were now trapped inside the yard. As Matt settled in behind a sandbag wall his radio came alive.
‘Yankee Alpha, this is Yankee One – over.’ It was the Team One commander. Matt’s platoon had four teams, each comprising six commandos that made up his platoon.
‘Send it,’ replied Matt.
‘This is Yankee One. All four teams are firm in location, the enemy are contained in the outer perimeter and we are awaiting further instructions – over.’
Matt thought for a second then replied, ‘Roger. All call signs, this is Yankee Alpha; hold position and wait for further orders – out.’
Matt pulled down the NVGs on his Ops-Core helmet and surveyed the area. Tracer rounds flashed backwards and forwards and the sounds of 40mm grenades echoed on the perimeter. Matt fixed his eyes on the guard box. Spotting some movement, he nudged his sergeant. ‘JJ, is someone up in the guard tower?’
The sergeant quickly turned his attention from covering the top of the Hesco wall and adjusted his NVGs. ‘Ah, yep – looks like Australian camouflage pants, boss. I can only make out his legs from here.’
‘Bloody hell, that changes the situation a bit, mate. We’ve got to get him out of there.’
‘He’s already dead I reckon, boss. Can we clear it after we sort these guys out?’
‘No, I’m pretty sure I saw him move. Either way, he’s one of ours and worth a punt, right?’
Matt looked back towards the accommodation block and the vehicles parked along the road and then across to his men, who were lining their defensive positions and sending controlled fire back at the Taliban. The booming sound of AK-47s was interspersed by the tap-tap of the smaller calibre, suppressed M4 rifles, the favoured weapon of elite Special Forces units the world over.
‘Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!’ The scream came from the yard and then a Taliban sprinted out of the gate towards the inner perimeter fence.
Whack! He fell stone dead, shot by the commandos a few metres from the exit of the vehicle yard. He detonated seconds later; the ground shook as the explosion rocked the area, sending bits of bone fragment, mixed with rocks and earth, into the air.
‘Another suicide bomber,’ JJ said calmly.
‘No shit.’ Matt grabbed his radio fist mic. ‘All call signs, this is Yankee Alpha – radio orders, prepare to copy – over.’
The teams replied and waited for their instructions. Matt surveyed the frontage and the adjoining base. The regular infantry guys were doing a great job in holding their own perimeter. So far they had maintained discipline and fire control. The small Special Forces base known as Camp Russell was an extra extension of the main Dutch-controlled Tarin Kowt base. While primarily the Australian Special Forces secured the smaller base, it shared a guard tower that had dual access from either perimeter. The smaller base was able to be supported and in turn also support the larger adjoining base occupied by the Dutch and the regular Australian infantry battalion. For the moment it seemed as if the Taliban attack had stalled – though if there were more suicide bombers to come, and if they could penetrate the inner perimeter, the situation could change significantly.
Matt chose Yankee One and Yankee Two as the assault teams. Their purpose would be to clear the vehicle yard of all enemy forces. The locked southern gate was the safest entry point for Matt’s plan, as the yard was a dogleg and therefore the gate wasn’t directly across from the northern gate. This would offer his men a covered entry point on break-in. Yankee Three would support the plan by taking two gun cars and breaking into the yard through the northern gate, blocking the enemy’s withdrawal and providing direct fire support to the assaulting teams. JJ would wait near the main power box and on Matt’s command cut all the lights to the base. That way the commandos and their NVGs would hold the advantage.
Matt relayed his orders.
Yankee Three immediately mounted the Bushmasters. The engines were started and the .50-cal machine guns on the remote weapon stations whirred into life. These vehicles were never designed to be an infantry fighting vehicle, but all the commandos considered them capable and trained with them often with this scenario in mind.
The final part to Matt’s plan was to have Yankee Four move behind the gun cars and break off at the last safe moment to secure the guard tower. From the guard tower they could then be used as the assault force from the opposite gate should the main assault be defeated.
Team Four pulled back to meet up with the Bushmasters and JJ also left his position to access the main electrical fuse box near the mess hall. This was the most dangerous moment, as all the teams were moving into their positions and the perimeter was manned only by a handful of cooks and engineers. Two more suicide bombers were dropped short of their objective in the few minutes it took the commandos to reach their start positions.
Matt keyed the mic. ‘All call signs this is Yankee Alpha – GO! GO! GO!’
The lights went out around the camp. The Bushmaster vehicles screamed to life, accelerating fast they smashed through their own defensive gate and towards the vehicle yard. At the northern gate they screeched to a halt. The .50-cal machine guns thumped into action, spraying bullets across the yard. The rattle of the heavy weapons made the air shake. Dust rose up from inside the vehicle yard and a brown cloud fell over the whole frantic scene. The tracers from the large calibre guns mixed with the dust to create a murderous laser show. An explosion inside the yard told of the presence of more suicide bombers.
Yankee One and Two, with Matt following close behind, raced on foot around to the other end of the yard and the locked gates. The lead man stopped and put down covering fire into the yard, as another team member placed an explosive snib charge on the iron chain that secured the gates. The chain disintegrated in a flash and moments later the two teams poured inside, racing down either side of the yard. At the other end of the yard Team Four ran to the guard tower and the commandos scaled the stairs two at a time. Within seconds they had secured the tower.
Matt’s radio crackled into life.
‘Boss, this is Yankee Four, we’ve got a man down up here. Four/Four is stabilising him and then I’m sending two guys to drag him back into the perimeter.’
‘Roger that.’ Matt fired his suppressed rifle at a Taliban who ran across his front, directly between him and one of the guys from Team One. The two rounds slammed into the enemy’s chest and dropped him in a crumpled heap. Matt adjusted his NVGs and tightened the chinstrap of his helmet. His sweat had made the goggles slide around on his face.
The vehicle yard could hold nearly sixty vehicles and was a couple of hundred metres wide. There weren’t too many places to hide in there, especially as it was largely empty of vehicles. Matt and the commando teams were now in and among the remaining enemy fighters, some of whom had found a ladder and had propped it against a wall to try to escape back out to the airfield. The Taliban who were yet to scale the wall ran around in the dark, firing desperately in all directions. But with the commandos’ NVGs and invisible lasers it was hardly even a fight. The commandos moved in and around the shadows, firing at the enemies’ illuminated faces. The subdued recoil of the commandos’ suppressed M4s was in stark contrast to the deafening explosions of the AK-47s, but every time there was a little tap-tap another Taliban would fall dead into the dust. The fight was brutal, one-sided and over in less than two minutes.
Matt and JJ surveyed the carnage contained within the vehicle yard. Metal hitting flesh and bone does strange things to the human body – the scene was nothing like how it would have appeared in a movie. The enemy lay in twisted heaps surrounded by dark red pools where their life had flowed from their bodies. Most had single holes in the centre of their faces and the back of their heads had all but disappeared. The unluckier ones had multiple holes in their chests. Their legs or arms had been blown off from the force of bullets turning after striking internal bone. It was a grotesque scene.
JJ moved from body to body collecting their biometrics and taking photos for the evidence boards. The men collected equipment. It was gathered and tagged to ensure that the right equipment matched the biometric samples of the dead enemy fighters. They mostly worked in thoughtful silence.
‘That was intense,’ JJ said.
‘Yeah, it was. Turned out all right in the end though.’ Matt looked up at JJ while unloading one of the enemy weapons. ‘Mate, why were the Bushmasters still in front of the barracks? I’m sure the RSM told you yesterday that he wanted them secured in the yard and out of the way.’
‘Come on, boss, that was a bullshit order and you know it.’ JJ had little time for the regimental sergeant-major. The most senior non-commissioned officer, he was responsible for standards and discipline on the base. JJ thought his efforts would have been better focused on the men’s morale.
‘It doesn’t matter if it was bullshit or not; an order is an order. You should have just done what the RSM frigging asked.’
‘Boss, all he gives a crap about is having the place tidy, everything packed away where it should be. We have to live and fight off those vehicles and so they need to be packed and the guys have to have access to work on them. Having them kept six hundred metres away in the vehicle yard makes it near on impossible.’
‘You can’t pick and choose the orders to follow, Jack!’
The exchange between the two was catching the platoon’s attention.
‘Boss, if the cars were in the yard this might have been a different gun fight.’ JJ pulled the white surgical gloves from his hands and wiped the blood off his face with the bottom of his shirt.
‘JJ, you’re clutching at straws, mate. For the last time – follow orders and do what you’re told. For your sake and the platoon’s. I don’t need the RSM all over us like white on rice every chance he gets, pal.’
‘Jesus, you’re such a fucking boy scout!’ JJ yelled as he threw an AK down into the dirt. ‘I suppose you never break the bloody rules?’
‘I’m going to let that comment go through to the keeper – just this once.’ Matt glared at JJ, who looked away.
JJ was a good man, Matt knew, but prone to emotional outbursts – and because of his sheer size these outbursts could be terrifying to those who didn’t know him well. He was usually able to control his temper, but it had been a rough evening. The vehicles had been a contentious issue for a few days. JJ had decided to forget to tell the guys to move them. He thought the regimental sergeant major was a dick. Actually, Matt thought ruefully, everyone on both sides of the Special Operations Task Group, the SAS and the commandos, shared that opinion.
The RSM had never deployed in a combat role and knew little of the realities of combat. He aspired to be the Command RSM one day and needed an unblemished record to achieve it. The commandos represented a real issue for him. They were hard to control and pig-headed. Unlike the SAS guys, he complained, they were not quiet achievers. Everything they did was either for dramatic or strategic effect. They were a product not only of their training, but also their own self-belief, which was fuelled by their higher command’s open bias against them.
In the two weeks since the commando platoons had rotated into the camp, the RSM – who was from SAS – had tried to break them. He had been hot on having the place look like a military base and despised disorder, however functional it might have been. The gun cars left lined up in front of the accommodation blocks had been the last straw. He had launched into a tirade about the commandos’ lack of discipline and standards and then somehow linked it all to haircuts and beards before settling on slamming the door to the operations room and storming off. The RSM didn’t have to wait long for the problem to be halved though. Whether by design, good fortune or a mixture of both, the Commando Company had been broken up for this rotation. X-Ray Platoon, commanded by Chris Smith, was now providing a Quick Reaction Force to the NATO Special Operations Force based out of Camp Baker at the Kandahar airfield. They were bouncing all around Regional Command South, either securing helicopter landing zones, dropping in on gunfights to break any deadlocks or pulling out other Special Forces units that had bitten off more than they could chew. Meanwhile, back in Tarin Kowt, the Yankee Platoon was left to check and double check that their weapons were zeroed on the Tarin Kowt range and work on their room entry drills. It was growing old with Matt’s men at a rapid rate.
‘Okay lads, let’s get back to the barracks and get cleaned up. The MPs are here now, they can deal with this. JJ, hand over your notes, mate,’ Matt said.
‘Sure thing and not soon enough. I’ve had a gutful of this for one night.’
Matt looked down at his own hands and noticed that they were shaking. He took a deep breath and focused on calming his central nervous system. A year’s previous training with the platoon on counter-terrorism duties had taught him a thing or two. He looked around at his men and some of them were going through the same drill. They all looked exhausted.